"To
play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever
happen to a ballplayer."

-Mickey Mantle-

ATL Player and
Ballpark Usage Info

Player
Usage

There
are no league restrictions or
regulations on normal player usage in the ATL. Every player is a
full-time player. That is the prime rule.

There are no league constraints on how you, as Owner and General
Manager, develop your
roster. You can have on your roster any group of 35 players that you
can draft, sign or trade for. However, having a well-rounded roster is
part of winning a pennant. It will be best to have a roster strategy
that includes at least 3 players rated to play catcher, shortstop,
second base and centerfield. These are the most important positions on
the field, and players who can play these positions well are at a
premium. It is also a good strategy to have some balance on the
pitching staff between right-handers and left-handers. But the bottom
line is that the league does not force any requirement on you. You are
free to experiment.

There are no league constraints on how you, as Field Manager, use your
players. The players can be played at any position, but they will
perform best in the role they are set up for. The game will handle
players used out of position by penalizing them appropriately. It is
all within the game mechanics, and only hinted at by the DMB Help
files, so experience is the best teacher in this regard. The best
strategy is to be prepared, and only use players in the role they are
meant to be used in. For the specifics of what the DMB Help file says
about this topic, read here:

You can use a player at a defensive position for which he is not
rated,
but his performance will
suffer. How much? It depends.

Players can make a relatively
painless transition to an easier position that is similar to one
they're already rated for. The penalties are much greater for moving to a very
different position that is also more difficult to play.

For example, a CF can play LF or RF without suffering much at
all. Both positions are similar and easier than the one he's rated for.
A LF or RF moving to CF has a more difficult time because there's more
ground to cover. Similarly, a move from SS to 2B won't cost you too
much, while a move from 2B to SS will hurt more. And the moves that will hurt the most are
(a) from any position to catcher, (b) a catcher moving to any position
except 1B, and (c) a 1B moving to CF or another infield position.

How will these penalties show up? In lots of ways. More balls in
their zones will go for hits.
They'll make more errors.
Guys without outfielder throwing or catcher throwing ratings will be easier to run on. Unrated
catchers will have more passed balls.
Unrated middle infielders won't
start as many double plays on balls hit to them, and they won't turn two as often when
they're the pivot man on the play. Pitchers without hold ratings will
be easier to run on.

You might ask why we apply penalties even when a player is moving
to a less difficult position. Couldn't a top-rated SS play 2B as well
or better than the average 2B? In the many years that we've been
assigning fielding ratings, we've seen a lot of players get higher
ratings when they make the transition from a harder position to an
easier one (especially SS -> 2B, 3B -> 1B, and CF -> LF), but
we've also seen plenty of cases where the player needed some time to
learn how to play the new position.

Every position requires
mastery of a different set of skills. A CF moving to RF needs to learn
how to play the caroms on balls hit down in the corner. A 3B needs
great reflexes to handle the hot smashes that come his way, and that
might not be the strong suit of a middle infielder moving to 3B. A SS
moving to 2B must learn how to make the pivot with his back to the
runner.

If our out-of-position adjustments assumed that every player
could instantly adapt to a new position, even an easier one, we think
it would create too many opportunities for managers to abuse the game
by moving players around in ways that real-life managers would never
get away with. So the game imposes penalties of varying degrees on all
out-of-position players.

real-life managers sometimes ask position players to throw an
inning on the mound to save the bullpen in a blowout, and sometimes
these players manage to retire a few hitters. Overall, they don't do
very well, and you'll find that the same is true if you try this in DMB.

So we see that although we can put any player anywhere on the diamond
we want, we will get
better results if we do not force players into situations they did not
usually find themselves.

What is true for the real baseball teams is even more so here where
every player is a star. Even the lesser players in the ATL were
at least franchise stars when they played the game. Every ATL game is
an All-Star game. It will take a good roster strategy and a good
managing strategy to have a good season. Having good players in
the lineup is not enough -- every team in this league has good players
in the lineup.

Injuries are the bane of every team's season, and injuries are the
great unknowable future catastrophe awaiting every team in every next
game. Nobody can predict when an injury will strike, or how long a
player will go without an injury. Seasons and careers have been
unmade because of injury. Injuries have shaped many a player's
career. That is real life. Here in the ATL we use the Random
Injury setting to simulate just that black void of undetermined injury
potential. None of us knows which player will get struck down by a
season-crushing injury. One thing we do have the luxury of, is that no
injury will affect a player's career in any way except to shorten the
amount of games the player would otherwise have played.

Managing injuries is your task. You must decide whether to put a
player
on the Disabled List or carry that player on a roster spot even though
the player cannot play. Disabling a player may lengthen the time a
player is out of action because league regulations state that Roster
Changes can only be made between series. That means you may not be able
to Activate a player immediately after the injury is over -- you have
to wait until the current series of games is over and put in the
Activate order for between-series. Since we play 4-day series, the time
a player is out could be lengthened by up to 4 days, or a multiple of 4
days if you forget to Activate the player on time. You can consider the
extra time on the Disabled List as special injury rehabilitation time.
You cannot have a
standing order for the Commissioner to activate a player as soon as
possible, it is your responsibility as Owner, General Manager and Field
Manager to watch over every aspect of your team and its players.

Players traditionally have certain roles, and the players in this set
are depicted in the roles they played for the time periods depicted by
the player set. However, you have complete
control over this aspect of your team as well. You can choose to change
the role of any player on your roster. Most commonly we will see
starting pitchers used as relief pitchers simply because there are not
enough good relief pitchers in this player set. Or put another
way, there are an abundance of good starting pitchers in this player
set, more so than relief pitchers. Many teams have more than enough
starters and are short on relievers, and so the roles shall be changed.
For pitchers who do have a relief rating there will be no penalties for
playing out of position -- because they are rated at the position of
relief pitcher. For those pitchers without a relief rating, or for the
opposite -- those relievers without a rating as starting pitcher, the
normal penalties for playing out of position will apply.

How do you change their roles? Simply use the Manager Profile to
define the role you want a pitcher to play. There are slots for Setup
Men, Closers, Mopup guys, Long Relievers, Spot Starters and your normal
rotation. Here is a good place to quote the DMB Help file about
some very important settings on the pitcher pages that you have
complete control over -- and will decide how the computer uses your
pitchers during Autoplay games (during Netplay games you have complete
and utter control over your players except for Roster Changes and
Roster Mods -- which are not allowed during Netplay).

The following is very important, please read it all the way
through. At the bottom of the rotation box in the roster/manager
profile section, there are 3 additional boxes. These three boxes
control
very powerful functions:

Select Time mode to have
the
computer manager do its best to make sure
that every starting pitcher and reliever gets exactly as many starts
and relief appearances as they had in real life. This mode is
appropriate for teams that have their real-life rosters intact, and it
should NOT
be used when you are playing a season with newly-drafted
rosters.

NOTE: In Time mode,
the computer manager ignores
your rotation.
Instead, it looks at how many starts each pitcher is limited to in the
playing time limits section of your profile (this is usually set to
match his real-life starts) and spreads those starts evenly over the
season. The pitcher with the most real-life starts will be selected on
opening day even if he is not listed in the #1 slot in the rotation.
The computer manager will choose starting pitchers who are not in the
rotation if their games started limit is greater than zero.

Select Strict mode to
have the
computer manager use your pitchers in
the order they appear in the starting rotation. The computer manager
will choose another starting pitcher only if a rotation starter is
injured when his turn comes up (or if
you are using the Spot Start Percentage rating for Spot Starters, and
that percentage chance has happened).

Select Skip to have the
computer manager use your pitchers in the order
they appear in the starting rotation but skip to the #1 starter when
one or more off-days have left him rested enough to start before his
turn. The computer manager will choose another starting pitcher only if
a rotation starter is injured when his turn comes up.

Rotation Size You can
enter a number to tell the computer
manager how
big the starting rotation should be. Modern teams almost always use a
five-man rotation. Four-man rotations were common until the 1970s, and
smaller rotations were the norm a hundred years ago.

Although the saved starting rotation is ignored in the Usage mode of Time, it is still important to set
your rotation size in order to get
the most out of your starting pitchers. If a pitcher made 40 starts,
the rotation size must be set no higher than 4 in order for him to
reach his maximum number of starts. If you set the size at 5, he won't
make more than 33 starts in a 162-game season.

The Rotation Size is
also
used to enforce a Strict or Skip rotation.

Next Starter. When you
are using either the Strict
or Skip rotation mode, this
value
tells the computer manager which rotation slot is due to start the next
game. You can change this if
you want to juggle your rotation during a
season.

NOTE: When the computer
manager selects a starting pitcher in Strict
or Skip mode, it simply
chooses the
pitcher who is in the Next
starter slot. It doesn't look at who was used in recent games, so it's up to you to make sure that
the Next starter value is set appropriately
if you are mixing human-managed games and computer-managed games for
this team.

So we see here how important it is to be sure to set the correct modes
for the computer manager to govern the use of the team's pitchers the
way we want it to.

Batters don't have the same intensity with their special controls as
the pitchers do, probably because of the difference in the basic roles
of batter and pitcher. But there is a box under the Depth Chart
tab that bears special attention -- like the pitchers, this box
concerns Usage. The DMB
Help file describes it thusly:

Choose Track Starts if
you
wish to simulate an entire season and you want your players to match
the playing time indicated in the depth chart. With this setting, the
computer manager keeps track of how often each player starts at each
position versus left- and right-handed pitching in your DMB games.
During the season, it uses this information to adjust the starting
lineups to keep everyone on a pace to accumulate the amount of playing
time indicated in your depth charts.

NOTE: If your goal is to
match real-life playing time as closely as possible, we recommend that
you choose None for your League Injury Rule, Yes for the Limit Bench Playing Time option.
See Leagues: Rules and Options
for more details on these settings.

Choose Game by Game if
you
want to change the roles of your players during a season. With this
setting, the computer manager takes each game at a time and randomly
chooses spot starters using the spot start percentages in your depth
chart.

Since we are not simulating a past season, and this is a completely
open-ended draft league there are very few reasons to use the Track Starts mode, and could have
some unexpected consequences if used. The Game by Game mode is generally the
way to go for us, especially since we use the RandomLeague Injury Rule and No to Limit Bench Playing Time (because
there are no bench players in
this league).

But what is
essential for us to pay attention to in both pitchers and batter, but
more so for catchers, is the Spot
Start Percentage option for substitutes -- both
pitcher and fielder. Catchers especially need some time off
because of the demands of the position, and this option is the way to
control that during Autoplay games. Simply said, the Spot Start Percentage
controls how often a sub comes in to start for the starter at that
position. This is straightforward for all positions except
catcher. Here is what the DMB Help file says about Catcher Fatigue, which adds
another element into the Spot Start
Percentage that is not there for any other position.

The Catcher Fatigue
system is
designed to ensure that you limit your starting catcher to about 85-90%
of total playing time. It does so by monitoring usage within a moving
ten-day window as the season goes along.

If you're in a stretch where your team has no days off, your
catcher
will almost certainly get tired if you start him ten games in a row.
Giving a catcher an off day once every ten days is sometimes enough to
keep him rested, and giving him two days off will definitely keep him
at full strength unless he caught a couple of long extra-inning games
in that stretch.

A catcher's workload is determined on a batters-caught basis. In
a
modern season, a team typically faces about 6250 batters over a 182-day
schedule. That's about 344 batters per ten day period, and because we
try to limit catchers to 85-90% of total playing time, you should try
to keep your catchers from facing more than 300 batters in a ten day
period. You can monitor catcher usage using the Team Status report and the Status page of the Player Profile window.

If a catcher is used more than this, he will be less productive
as a
hitter and fielder, with the penalty being greater the further the
catcher is over the limit. The penalty is very severe if you let
someone catch every inning of every game, so it's not something you'd
want to try on a regular basis.

Using a catcher at another position (including designated hitter)
is equivalent to giving him the day off, but you need to do this in
advance. If you catch him too much and he gets tired as a result, you
can't play him at another position the next game without penalizing him
at the plate. But if you play him somewhere else once in a while, that
will help keep him rested in the first place.

Now we come around to Depth Charts and how to maximize their use.
Every Owner will have their own individual Field Manager tactics they
would like the Computer Manager to emulate, and a lot of programming
those responses goes on right here in the Depth Charts. Here, again, is
what the DMB Help file has to say:

A depth chart goes hand in hand with a saved lineup, and guides the
computer manager in its use of players who are not in the starting lineup. There
are four roles that you can assign to a bench player in a depth chart:

Platoon Player. A platoon is a pair of players, one
who
bats left-handed and one who bats right-handed. The manager starts the
left-hander against right-handed pitchers and the right-hander against
left-handed pitchers. If the opposing team changes pitchers, the
computer manager may substitute the platoon player to get a favorable
left-right matchup.

Defensive Replacement. If you specify a player in this
role, the player will be inserted into a game in the late innings of
games in which the team has a narrow lead.

Utility Player (aka Substitute
Player). You can list up to five players as utility players at
each defensive position. These players are used when a starter is
injured or removed for a pinch hitter or pinch runner during a game. If
you want someone to be used primarily as a bench player but make
occasional starts, you can indicate the percentage of games this player
should start at this position.

Pinch Hitter. You can list up to five players as pinch
hitters versus left- or right-handed pitchers.

Defensive Replacements

The computer manager currently makes defensive replacement
decisions one
position at a time. That means that there's no point in trying
to set up your profile to make a series of defensive shifts. For
example, you cannot
tell the computer manager to insert a player as a defensive replacement
in center, move the starting center fielder to right, and remove the
right fielder.

Pinch hitters

You don't have
to fill the list in to make the computer manager use pinch hitters.
If these lists are empty, DMB chooses pinch hitters from all available
players on the bench, including starters who are resting for the
current game. However, if you choose to enter one or more players in
these lists, DMB chooses only from among these players when a pinch
hitter is called for. If none of these players is available, the
computer manager then looks to the full bench to see if another hitter
could be used. The computer manager doesn't
always choose the first player in the list as the first pinch
hitter in the game. Sometimes it will choose to keep the top player
available for a better opportunity later in the game

And now let's talk to the pitching coaches over in the bullpen:

The pitching chart includes your starting rotation, rules for how
your starters are to be used, a list of other pitchers who may start
from time to time, and the assignment of relief pitchers to various
roles.

Roles

You can assign up to five pitchers to each of the following roles:

Starting rotation. You identify the pitchers that make
up
your starting rotation and the order in which they appear. You can use
a rotation with three, four or five pitchers -- just leave spots empty
if you don't want to use five pitchers. You also indicate whether
starting pitchers should be used in strict rotation, in rotation but
with the option to jump to the #1 starter if off-days make him
available, or in proportion to the number of starts made in real life.

Spot Starters. If you want a pitcher to make
occasional
starts, you can designate that player as a spot starter. The list of
spot starters parallels
the list of pitchers in the starting rotation. If you want someone to
start 20% of the time in place of the number four starter, enter this
player in the fourth spot in the spot starter list, and enter 20 when
you are prompted for the percentage.

Mopup situations. You can designate up to five
pitchers
for the mopup role. This role is used for the weaker pitchers on the
team. They will normally be used only when your team is winning or
losing by a large margin and the outcome of the game isn't really in
doubt, though they may appear in close games if other pitchers are not
available due to injury or fatigue.

Long Relief. You can designate pitchers for the role
of
long relief. Long relievers are generally used when the starting pitcher is replaced prior to the
seventh inning, but will also be used in other game situations
when required, particularly when a team is losing by a large margin and
wants to preserve its better pitchers for future games.

Setup Men. There are two lists of setup men, one to
face
left-handed batters and one to face right-handed batters. Setup men are
generally used in the seventh inning or later in close games, but will
also be used in other situations when required.

Closers. There are two lists of closers, one to face
left-handed batters and one to face right-handed batters. Closers are
generally used in the eighth or ninth inning when the team has a lead
in a close game, but will also be used in other situations when
required.

In most game situations, the computer manager uses the first
available pitcher in the appropriate list whenever a reliever is called
for (excluding players on the reserve roster). So it is important that
you list your players in the order you wish them to be considered, with
your first choice at the top of the list. However, there are other
situations where another choice will be made. If the bullpen has been
used heavily, the computer manager may use the most rested pitcher. If
either team has a big lead, it may choose to use a less talented
pitcher to make sure your top pitchers are rested for future games. If a game goes into extra innings,
everyone in the bullpen is a candidate to enter the game.

Enter a pitcher on more than one list if you want him to be
considered for more than one role. For example, your top setup man may
also be your number two closer. However, there is no need to fill up
all of the lists, since the computer manager chooses from other lists
if nobody in a particular role is available.

The more input you give the computer manager in these depth charts for
both batters and pitchers, the more help it gets when it needs to make
an in-game decision. That also means the more chance it has of making
the decisions you want it to make in those situations. Do not be afraid
to experiment with these settings. We only play a 4-day series at a
time, and that allows for plenty of between series tweaks -- and
especially series-specific tweaks, where you give the computer manager
special instructions because of injuries, slumps, hot streaks or
ballpark.

Now we come to the crux of the Field Manager's role: the Manager Tendencies and Player Tendencies.
Here you will put your tactical imprint as Field Manager on your team.
For the most part Manager and Player Tendencies mirror each other, with
Manager Tendencies covering every player that does not
have a specific Player Tendency set for them. So you can govern
your whole team by the strategy outlined in your Manager Tendencies,
but then every player will be treated the same as every other player
regardless of their basic skill set. That is why there are Player
Tendencies as well -- so you can adjust the team strategy to fit the
individual ballplayer. If you are like me you will adjust and
tweak these settings all season long to guide your team through the
league, through slumps, against specific teams and even against
specific players.

For example, perhaps you are playing a team that has three rifle arms
in the outfield. You might set your Running rating a bit lower than
usual. Perhaps the opposing team has a history of using its bullpen to
get opposing platoon players to be activated, and thereby emptying your
bench and depriving the computer manager of options in the late
innings. You can set your platoon players to not be
activated so easily, or not at all in-game for this series. How your
team reacts, and the depth of that reaction, in many situational
circumstances during Autoplay is under your control here. These
all deserve very special attention even if you never read instructions
because they are a little quirky and have some very specific results in
some circumstances -- and not always what you would expect. Here
is what the DMB Help file
says (and this is just a quick overview with a few snips taken out and
added in):

There are twenty tactics for which you can influence how the
computer manager makes its decisions:

and six help
determine how the pitching
staff is used: pitching around hitters, intentionally walking hitters,
pitching out, making pickoff throws, using relief pitchers, and using
closers.

The values you can set for each tactic are Most Frequent, More Frequent, Neutral, Less Frequent, and Least Frequent.

Playing the Percentages

For each of these tactics, Diamond Mind has studied
play-by-play data to analyze the frequency with which they are deployed
by real-life managers. We have examined how those frequencies are
affected by the inning, number of outs, the score, baserunner
locations, the ability of the players involved, and other factors.

When set to Neutral,
the computer manager attempts to replicate these real life patterns by
choosing, for example, to bunt with only the best bunters in the most
appropriate bunting situations and when the batter wouldn't do better
against this particular pitcher by swinging away. In other words, if
you set everything to Neutral,
the computer manager plays the percentages.

Based on an analysis of thousands
of real-life games, the computer manager knows the odds of winning a game in
any situation (such as when you're the away team and down by a run in
the seventh), and it knows
the probability of scoring a certain number of runs in any situation.
So it sometimes plays for a big inning, and sometimes it plays for one
run, whichever gives it the best chance to win. And it preserves the
element of surprise, so you cannot always predict what the computer
manager will do in a particular situation.

If all of your manager tendencies are set to Neutral, a team with more good
base-stealers will steal more often than a team with fewer good
base-stealers. A team with more good runners will take more extra bases
on hits and flies than a team with fewer good runners. This is equally
true of real-life rosters and draft-league rosters.

The other settings are intended to override the computer
manager's natural inclination to play the percentages. If you want your
team to sacrifice bunt less often, despite having many good bunters,
set your Sacrifice bunting tendency to Less Frequent or Least Frequent.
If you want your team to try to pressure your opponent into making
throwing errors, set your Running tendency to More Frequent or Most
Frequent. But be aware that being more aggressive may mean taking more
chances than the percentages would normally call for.

What the settings mean

Because there are too many variations in game situations and
talent levels among different rosters, there are no precise answers to
the question, "What will the computer manager do if I choose this
setting?" However, you may want to consider the following when making
your choices, then play some games using the computer manager to see
how it handles your team in different situations:

Bunting. As is the case with all tendencies, a player's
bunt rating is still the most important factor in determining how often
the computer manager asks a player to bunt, but you can use the three
bunting tendencies to increase or decrease bunt attempts by the players
on your team.

The Squeeze Bunt tendency is used whenever there's a
runner on third with less than two outs. While it is true that some
real-life managers will use the sacrifice bunt with runners on first or
third in order to move the runner from first to second and holding the
runner at third, the DMB computer manager does not use this tactic. It
prefers not to give up an out when it already has a runner in scoring
position.

The Bunt For Hit tendency is used whenever there are
two out, the bases are empty, and in a couple of other situations where
runners are on base but sacrificing makes little sense. For example,
with a position player at the plate, real-life managers rarely call for
a sacrifice with one out and a single runner on either first or second, so DMB uses the bunt for hit tendency
in those situations. With nobody out, or a pitcher at the plate, it's a
different story, and DMB uses the sacrifice bunt tendency in those
cases.

The Sacrifice bunt tendency is used with nobody out and
a runner on first, a runner on second, or runners on both first and
second. With one out, the sacrifice bunt tendency is used with a
pitcher at the plate, but the bunt for hit tendency is used when a
position player is batting, because real-life position players rarely
sacrifice with one out. More often than not, they're bunting for a hit
even with a runner on base.

Hit And Run. When deciding whether to use the hit and
run, the computer manager is looking primarily at the batter's ability
to make contact (and thereby protect the runner) and the likelihood
that he'll hit into a double play if he does. High strikeout rates
discourage the use of the hit and run, while high rates of ground ball
double plays encourage the use of this tactic. The settings for this
tactic nudge the computer manager in the direction you choose by
adjusting the contact-rate and GDP-rate thresholds it uses to make
these decisions.

Stealing. When set to Neutral, the computer
manager is reluctant to attempt steals with runners owning low Steal
ratings, since they will be thrown out too often. If you want to
further restrict your steal attempts to those players with the highest
steal ratings, choose Less Frequent or Least Frequent.
This will not stop your best stealers from running, but will restrain
other players.

Running. This tendency governs how many chances the
computer manager will take on the base paths. When the computer manager
makes a running decision, it compares the
chances of gaining the extra base safely to a minimum
threshold based on the game situation.

The chances of gaining the extra base are determined by the
nature of the batted ball, whether the runner was going on the pitch or
on contact, the running rating of the runner, and the throwing rating
of the outfielder.

The minimum threshold is based on the game situation
and whether it makes more sense to play for one run (as in the late
innings of a close game) or a big inning. Depending on the number of
outs and where the runners are situated, the value of taking the extra
base can be high or low, as can be the cost of getting thrown out. The
computer manager takes these factors into consideration when deciding
how high the chances of success need to be to justify taking the risk
of getting thrown out.

The Running tendency controls the minimum threshold. If you
choose "less frequent" or "least frequent", the minimum threshold
rises. That causes the computer manager to send the runner only
when the chances of success are higher. If you choose "more frequent"
or "more frequent", the minimum threshold is lowered, and the
computer manager will take more chances.

NOTE: This tendency applies to singles, doubles and
fly balls. It does not affect the decision to send the runner home from
third on a ground ball.

Taking Pitches. This tendency enables you to increase
or decrease the likelihood that your best hitters will have
the green light to swing with three balls and no strikes. It
doesn't affect any other counts. And you don't need to use
this tendency to prevent your weaker hitters from swinging at 3-0
pitches because the computer manager never gives them the green light.

Pinch Hitting. In all game situations other than
blowouts, the computer manager uses a pinch hitter only if he is rated
to be better than the scheduled hitter against the current pitcher.
This assessment takes into account the handedness and the left/right
splits of both the batter and the pitcher.

A "least frequent" setting tells the computer manager to pinch
hit less often; that is, only when the pinch hitter is much better than
the scheduled hitter. A "most frequent" setting tells the computer
manager to pinch hit more aggressively; that is, even when the pinch
hitter is only a little better than the scheduled hitter.

Pinch hitting in Blowouts is a different matter
altogether. In these situations, the goal is not to gain an
advantage, it's to replace the team's better players to reduce
their risk of injury. In blowouts, the computer manager generally
replaces a better player with a weaker one, so the relative strength of
the players is not a concern. Instead, the Blowout Pinch Hitting
tendency influences the computer manager decisions about:

(a) how big a lead is needed for the game to be treated as
a blowout

(b) how early in the game it will begin to remove players.

In blowout situations, the "In Blowouts" tendency takes precedence over
the other pinch hitting tendencies.

b>Holding Runners. When set to Neutral, all
runners but the worst are held. Choosing Most Frequent
causes all runners to be held. Choosing Least Frequent
causes the first basemen to play behind runners with low Jump
and Steal ratings.

Guard The Lines. This setting controls the inning in
which the computer manager begins to think about guarding the lines:

Tendency

Inning

Most frequent, more frequent

7th

Neutral

8th

Less frequent

9th

Least frequent

never

Infield in. This setting
controls the inning in which the computer manager begins looking for
opportunities to bring the infield in:

Tendency

Inning

Most frequent

1st

More frequent

4th

Neutral

6th

Less frequent

7th

Least frequent

8th

This tendency does not affect the decision to bring the infield
in at the corners, which can occur anytime during a game to discourage
a batter from bunting.

Pitching AroundandIntentional walk.
The computer manager issues Intentional Walks with first base open and
a dangerous hitter at the plate if the on-deck hitter is much less
of a threat. If the Intentional Walk tendency is set to Most
Frequent, the computer manager will issue a walk with a smaller
difference in hitting ability between the next two hitters. If it is
set to Least Frequent, the computer manager will issue the walk
only if the current hitter is even more dangerous relative to the
on-deck hitter.

If the next hitter is more dangerous than the on-deck hitter,
but not to a large enough degree to convince the computer manager to
issue an intentional walk, the computer manager might instruct
the pitcher to pitch around the next hitter. The pitching around
tendency is very similar to the intentional walk tendency in that it
determines how large the gap in hitting ability must be to justify the
decision to pitch around a hitter.

Pickoff ThrowsandPitchouts. Both of
these tactics are used to slow down opposing base stealers. You
may find that the "most frequent" and "more frequent" tendencies are
helpful, especially if your pitcher and catcher are not especially good
at shutting down the running game without a little extra help. Keep
in mind, however, that pitchouts can give the hitter an
advantage in the ball-strike count and too many pickoff throws can
lead to errors and/or wear and tear on the pitcher's arm.

Using Relievers, using closers. The decision to use a
reliever is very complex. Each decision involves so many
factors -- including the inning, score, location of baserunners,
quality of the current pitcher, quality of the potential reliever,
left/right matchups, fatigue, the makeup of the pitching portion of the
manager profile, fatigue, and more -- that it's not possible to lay out
simple rules that tell you exactly how these tendencies will affect the
computer manager's decisions. The basic idea, however, is that they
influence how quickly the computer manager will make the move to bring
in a reliever (in non-save situations) or the closer (in save
situations) when the current pitcher begins to get into
trouble.

Ballpark Usage

The
baseball park is like no other sport's field. Nowhere do the playing
fields have a life of their own, and influence the game as much as in
baseball. Nowhere else does the field itself become legendary.

The ballpark is the 10th man on the field for the home team. It is
ever-present, and makes its impact known in a variety of ways that
range the kamut from the subtle to the blatant. From bandbox homer
houses to wide open, green pitching palaces, the ballpark is as
important a part of every team's planning as who will bat cleanup.

In the ATL the franchise owner gets to pick his park from any
historical ballpark located in the same geographical area (i.e. state
or province) as the city of the team owned. Alternately the owner can
pick from any historical ballpark used as the home field by the
ballclub on a regular basis. Therefore a team like the Homestead Grays
can choose any of the home fields it had -- such as Forbes and Greenlee
in Pittsburgh, Griffith in Washington DC, or even the Baker Bowl, Shibe
Park or other Pennsylvanian ballpark. While the emphasis is on the
historical, we also realize the pervasive hypothetical nature of this
league, and the reason we play -- fun.

Franchises can only change their ballparks once every five years. New
owners can change their ballpark during their first off-season, and
then are subject to the 5-Year Rule. No franchise has
to change its ballpark, but if the owner wants to it can only be done
within the above time frame. This is to promote continuity on a
league-wide level.

Ballpark ratings are used that reflect a period of years where the
park's dimensions remained stable. For some ballparks that is a long
time. For others, only a short period. Some parks move the fences in or
back almost every year to take advantage of some perceived quirk of
their team. Here in the ATL owners can also change their park's ratings
every year -- by selecting a different set of years for the rating base
of the ballpark. Perhaps one year an owner wants Comiskey Park of the
1949-75 ratings, and then another year wants the Comiskey Park of the
1976-81 ratings, or the 1926-33 set, or any of the total of 10
different sets of years for Comiskey Park. The different sets of
ratings are the equivalent of moving the fences in, or moving them back
. . . or doing other major renovation work such as adding a new
scoreboard or spite fence or other architectural feature that changes
the dynamic of the playing conditions.

Owners are expected to help in the research necessary to define the
ratings for their park. Sometimes such statistical information is hard
to find, and even when it is readily available it can take several
hours of number-crunching to come up with a single set of ratings for a
park. Just as the emphasis is on the historical, the emphasis here is
on the statistical history. The goal in selecting a ballpark is to have
a simulation of the park to use in the game. That is why sets of years,
when possible, are used. That way a park's ratings are not skewed so
much by the play of an individual team -- we don't want to represent
the team, but the park instead. Where possible we use ballplay
statistics specifically relevent to the park as it relates to the
league it is in. When this level of detail is not available, we use
home team statistics averaged to the league and modified by the
Ballpark Factor. We use weather factors issued by DMB or other
reputable 3rd-party source, or derived through established narrative
histories of the characteristics of the ballpark in question.

DMB rates the lefty and righty factor of ballparks for singles,
doubles, triples and home runs. It also rates the weather and gives the
weather an effect on the game itself. Other aspects of the park also
are noted, but some are not relevent to gameplay yet. Here is what the
DMB Help file says about ballparks:

. . . ballparks play a large role in DMB. When players are
created, their raw statistics are adjusted for the statistical impact
of their home park. This (along with the era-based adjustments) helps
us create park-neutral ratings for all players. And when you play a DMB
game, the nature of the home park plays a significant role in the
outcomes of games played there.

These park adjustments add realism to your DMB games. If you use
the
real-life rosters and the real-life schedule, the park effects that are
removed during player creation are cancelled out by those that are
added during game play, so the players will produce statistics in DMB
that are very consistent with their real-life stats. If, on the other
hand, you draft new rosters, many of your players will be playing their
DMB games in different parks than in real life, and the change in parks
will have an impact on their DMB statistics.

This is the way it should be. In real-life, when a hitter is
traded to
a hitter-friendly park, you expect their statistics to rise even if
their talent level doesn't change, and you discount their real-life
stats for the effects of their new home park. The same is true in DMB.
If you move a player to a new park that is quite different from his
real-life park, you can expect to see his statistics be affected by
this move.

And as for ratings that are not yet used by the game except in
peripheral ways such as play-by-play, the DMB Help file has this to say:

If you choose to create or modify parks, keep in mind that the
statistical park factors are the most important of these groups of
ballpark ratings. If you move a fence back by 20 feet, it won't
decrease the number of homeruns hit in that park unless you also adjust
the homerun factor. If you change the surface from grass to artificial
turf, it won't increase the number of extra-base hits unless you also
increase the doubles and triples factors.

Why not? Because we haven't yet figured out how to isolate all of
the
things that affects the statistics produced in a ballpark. How much
will the rates of doubles, triples and homers be affected by a 20-foot
change in wall distance? By raising the fence by 10 feet? By putting in
a new type of artificial turf? Adding a new tier of seats that changes
the wind patterns? Or blocking off the center field seats so hitters
can see the pitched ball better? We don't know for sure.

But we can measure the overall impact of each park through
careful
study of home and road statistics, and we can capture that overall
impact through the statistical park factors. If a park consistently
increases doubles by 30%, we can give the park a rating that will
produce a 30% increase in your DMB games. To that extent, we don't need
to know precisely how much each of the factors is contributing to this
30% figure.

The ballpark your team plays in for 50% of its games can have a huge
impact on the numbers every player puts up -- every number, every
player. No player is immune to the ballpark effects: not Babe
Ruth, not Yutaka Ohashi, not anyone. For that matter,
all the ballparks in your league will have an effect on your players,
just that none will have so great an effect as the home field. Is your
park a home field advantage
or an albatross around your team's collective neck?

Your ballpark is as much a player on your club as any actual player,
and has as much influence on the game as the field manager. It should
also be an equal partner with the General Manager in regards to all
roster moves, and when the time comes it should get its share of the
credit for post-season success as well.

Your ballpark and your team are the yin and yang of the unique
personality that is your franchise.